When I first heard the reports of Michael Jackson being rushed to the hospital, I thought, “Here’s another crazy publicity stunt.” Like the boy who cried wolf, Michael Jackson always had a way of getting our attention, usually in sensational ways. Of course, this time it was different. When news of his death became official, I felt genuine remorse. I guess that is because part of my childhood died. As a kid I was a huge fan. Thriller was my first “real” record that I bought myself. I didn’t stay a mega fan for long, in fact Weird Al soon [...]
Read MoreJune 2009
Something has to change. I am at the point in life where you are honest enough to realize that what you have been doing just isn’t working. You finally realize that just tweaking a few things and trying harder just isn’t going to do it. I have tried hack after hack and rededication after rededicaton and if I keep trying it, I know I am going to get the same result. SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE. I am talking about my side businesses and entrepreneur dreams: The Happy Rock, Top Blog Posts, and my so called strategic web consultant business. [...]
Read MoreIn the comment section of April’s expense report I was asked by Single Guy Money,”What made up the ‘Household Misc’ category?” My answer was: The household misc category is made up of misc items. It’s stuff like: toilet paper, bug spray, diapers, toothpaste, batteries, postage stamps, small appliances, paper towels, wasp & hornet killer…and anything else that I’m too lazy to separate out. But to tell you the truth I had no idea what that months misc items were. So I thought I’d provide the breakdown for May of the misc category so I could really see where our money [...]
Read More16 year old Bryce Harper has chosen to forgo the last two years of high school in order to get his GED and enter the Major League Baseball draft. Harper, sometimes called baseball’s Lebron James, is bigger, stronger, and better than most 20 somethings. The phenom is looking to cash in big with a guaranteed signing bonus when the draft rolls around next June. He is under the guidance of the notorious super-agent Scott Boras who routinely brokers the biggest and craziest contracts in Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball most likely won’t interfere even though he is so young, [...]
Read MoreThat’s right, it wasn’t a typo: most cell phone contracts are creative ways to package debt. It sounds harsh, but if we dissect the relationship it will become glaringly obvious. You sell your cell phone soul to Sprint, or Verizon, or AT&T and in turn they give you a phone for a great price or even free. In return you agree to purchase monthly services for usually two years. You can’t switch providers without paying huge fees and you are required to shell over a hefty sum each month. That sounds a lot like the same type of prison [...]
Read MorePicking stocks is so easy, a baby can do it. Some of you long time readers might remember that back in February, I decided to take my student loan and try to time the market by investing in a hand-full of well known companies whose stocks were very low. Here’s what I got(2-25-09): FORD – 100 shares @ $2.04 CITIBANK – 100 shares @ $2.66 JP MORGAN – 20 shares @ $21.13 GE – 15 shares @ $7.07 These were not rock bottom prices. In fact the market took a HUGE tumble right after I got in (Citibank went down [...]
Read MoreDebt is a prison and you don’t get out of jail until your creditors are paid off. Even if you don’t feel like you are in prison debt still narrows your range of choices and options. You may be just to distracted with the shiny things you bought or by the stress of just making it each month that you might not even be able to visualize what life is like without debt. I will tell you first hand, being out of debt is awesome. We have so many more options as a family it is so energizing and even [...]
Read MoreThe Writer’s Coin was the host for the 6th Carnival of Top PF Posts. The carnival write-up includes carnival summary and a brief summary of each article. Click through and check out the carnival. For an easy voting reminder the voting widget is displayed below(RSS readers need to click through to the site to vote). Also new this week is the “Share this poll” link on the bottom of the voting widget which is designed to provide simple access to any bloggers who want to show the poll in a post on their own site like I did. The purpose [...]
Read MoreRemember when I caught grief about spending $140 on a reissue of my favorite band’s debut album? In case you forgot, I also talked about it here. Well it just occurred to me that I never reviewed Pearl Jam’s Super Deluxe Edition of Ten. IT ROCKS!!! It rocks for the 3 LPs(viva la vinyl). It rocks for the remixed CD. It rocks for all the collectible stuff! But my favorite part of it so far has been the DVD of Pearl Jam Unplugged. That performance probably is what made me such a die hard fan. I know the Nirvana appearance on Unplugged [...]
Read MoreI just got back from picking up my two boys, age 16 months and 3 1/2 years, from pre-school. It was their first day. After years of in-home single sitter care both boys were ready for something else. The youngest is a social little guy with a shorter attention span. He thrives on social interaction and is quite bored(aka naughty) in our 1000sqft condo. The oldest, The Pebble, is the smart shy engineer type. He would be happy to stay home by himself dissecting his toys and building trains. He would benefit from the social and relationship growth as well [...]
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